Monday, May 31, 2010

FREEDOM was formed in the autumn of 1967 by two ex members of PROCOL HARUM, drummer BOBBY HARRISON and guitarist RAY ROYER. Following the release of “Black On White” Harrison sacked the other group members and invited super cult guitarist ROGER SAUNDERS and bass player WALTER MONAGHAN to join him playing heavy blues rock.

During 1969 they released “Freedom At Last” followed in 1971 by “Through The Years” They got to tour the USA supporting BLACK SABBATH and JETHRO TULL where both albums got released.

Whilst they could sell out live shows and had toured extensively throughout their career the goal of a hit album eluded them and in 1972 they threw in the towel.

Bobby Harrison went on to form SNAFU with MICKY MOODY, Roger Saunders joined MEDICINE HEAD then spent most of the 80’s as a member of GARY GLITTER’S band. Freedom never quite made it to the first division of British rock. Not because of lack of ability, just sheer lack of luck. What we are left with is perhaps more a case of “what might have been” than what actually was, at least in a commercial sense.

Tracks :

Enchanted WoodDown in the BottomHave Love Will TravelCry Baby CryTime of the SeasonHoodoo ManBuilt For ComfortFlyNever Loved a GirlMy LifeCan't Stay With MeDusty Track

An album of easy listening standards which rather anomalously includes a lengthy version of King Crimson's "Epitaph", complete with mellotron.

"Kaplan Brothers: California lounge duo. "Nightbird" is a real people classic. low rent genius schmaltz kings with proggy ballad supperclub Holiday Inn moves and Arcesiaesque vocal stylings. These guys were the real thing for lounge lizard prog. This kitchen sink symphony with Grudzienesque cut-and-paste production is apparently a concept lp but you'll never figure it out sober. tinkling piano, synth washes, flutes. Highlight: King Crimson's "Epitaph" segued into a rewrite of the Cascades' "Rhythm of the Rain"! lots of sounds most of which have no business being there like the sound generators. Their previous lps are odd lounge but not nearly as high concept so the fall was much less disastrously interesting."

Tracks :

01 Ode to life
02 Vodka and caviare
03 Epitaph
04 Listen to the falling rain
05 Life and me
06 Love is life
07 Night bird
08 Happy
09 He

Sunday, May 30, 2010

At the end of the 60's, the breton twins Pol & Hervé Quefféléan from Brest city discover Alan Stivell. So, they decided to play harp, then to make a band called « An Triskell » in 1970 but some years later, they changed it to « Triskell ».

Cheap Trick at Budokan is a live album recorded by Cheap Trick in 1978. It is number 430 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time"

Cheap Trick found early success in Japan, and capitalized on this popularity by recording Cheap Trick at Budokan in Japan on April 28 and 30, 1978 with hordes of screaming Japanese girls nearly drowning out the band at times. This album (which appeared in Japan several months before being issued in the U.S. where it had sold briskly as an import) broke the band into global pop stardom. The album went platinum in three months and reached #4 on the Billboard 200. It also ranked #13 on Billboard's Top Pop Albums of 1979 year end chart. The single "I Want You to Want Me" reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and became the group's biggest selling single. The second single, a cover of Fats Domino's "Ain't That a Shame" also charted, reaching number 35. The album also introduced two previously unreleased original songs, "Lookout" and "Need Your Love".

A sequel, Budokan II, consisting of the remaining tracks from the concert not included on the original album, was released in 1993. An expanded version of the album was released in 1998 as At Budokan: The Complete Concert, remastered and fully restored to include all the concert tracks left off the original album. While it's missing "Stiff Competition", "On Top of the World", and "How Are You?", that were recorded at Budokan and released on Budokan II (1993), these songs were recorded in 1979 during their follow-up tour.

A 30th Anniversary Edition, Budokan! was released on November 11, 2008, as a four-disc set. In addition to the two-disc "Complete Concert", it includes a DVD and CD version of the concert from April 30, 1978. The filmed concert had originally been shown on Japanese TV, and was not previously commercially available. The original vinyl album is also to be reissued in conjunction with the 30th anniversary.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Berkeley-based band, Joy of Cooking, were quite the anomaly in the late 1960s; a band fronted by two women, who wrote and arranged the songs, sang lead vocals and played the frontline instruments, with three men providing the backup. Led by two talented songwriters, pianist Toni Brown and guitarist Terry Garthwaite, their music blended elements of folk, rock, country, jazz, and blues into a sound uniquely their own. One of the first bands to deal with feminist and environmental topics, they were ahead of their time and deserve credit for laying the groundwork for more commercially successful bands like Heart and latter-day Fleetwood Mac.

Following three compelling but only modestly successful Joy of Cooking albums—Joy Of Cooking and Closer To The Ground, which were both released in 1971, and 1972's Castles—Brown and Garthwaite headed to Nashville. There they recorded the long out of print Cross Country album, released in 1973 under the name Toni & Terry, before pursuing separate paths, each recording a solo album the following year. Although these albums failed to achieve commercial success, and were only heard by relatively few, they each contained a wealth of new material that retained the integrity and variety of their previous work.

Tracks :

1. Done My Cryin' Time
2. Going Isn't Easier
3. I Want to Be the One
4. Come to Me Now
5. As I Watch the Wind
6. Hey Little Girl
7. Midnight Blues
8. I Don't Want to Live Here
9. I've Made up My Mind
10. When All Is Said
11. I Don't Want Nobody ('Ceptin' You)

Mark Levine was, like many singer-songwriters of the late 1960s, a Dylanesque purveyor of trippy poetic lyrics and unschooled vocals. This 1968 album--a rarity reissued in 2007 by the Dynamic label--captures his gritty charms as well as the skillful backing band that includes the legendary session guitarist Mike Deasy and a young soon-to-be guitar icon Ry Cooder.

A very obscure and nearly impossible to find piece of American acid folk-rock recorded in 1968 by Mark LeVine, an underground Dylanesque singer-songwriter, here backed by top-notch musicians like Ry Cooder and Mike Deasy. A complex and enjoyable piece of music.

Monday, May 3, 2010

"Cocktail" is debut album of the Slovenian avant-garde artist Marko Brecelj. It was recorded and released in 1974, a year before his famous debut with BULDOZER's "Pljuni istini u oči" hit the music scene in Yugoslavia. In order to understand Brecelj's highly unusual and unconventional music solo career "Cocktail" serves as indispensable introduction.

If you only look at the cover image you may not notice at first sight, but it is a white laboratory mouse stirred up in a cocktail glass! This is already very unusual design for the period in which this all happens. Actually I would say it is perhaps the first "provocative" art statements if we speak about record sleeves of "pop music" in Yugoslavia.

Especially it was not conventional for a participant in the famous popular music Youth Festival Subotica where Brecelj appeared in 1974 and got a prize for his performance of "Dusa in jaz". Furthermore, the album was awarded with "Sedam sekretara SKOJ-a", an official prize given by the Communist youth organisation in SFR Yugoslavia! That would reveal some interesting info about the ideological nature of Yugoslav communism, but let's stick with music.

Musically, "Cocktail" is an interesting and unexpected mixture of big band/swing jazz, acoustic folk blues and pop music (Schlager) informed by cabaret humour. Majority of songs are arranged and backed by "The Dance Jazz Orchestra" of Radio Television Ljubljana, conducted by renowned film music composer Bojan Adamič. He has contributed to more than 150 films and TV shows during his career. Thus, what we have here is an avant-garde songwriter whose alternative lyrical and musical ideas are packed together with a festival-orchestral form. Speaking in worldwide terms, can you imagine the early 70s Tom Waits making a record with an orchestra conducted by John Williams or Enio Morricone? If you can, then you may have a picture of what this album sounds like.

Right from the start, "Same prave stvari" (Only the Right Things) introduces rich orchestral arrangements led by solo clarinet and Brecelj singing in a jazz-crooner style. "Črni Peter" (Black Peter) has a strong comedy pop feel with its silly brass and Alpine/polka odd time signature.

The following three tracks are pure blues. "Skandal v Rdečem baru" (The Red Bar Scandal) has got lot of "boozy" atmosphere of Tom Waits' albums from the same period, with gentle tones of acoustic guitar, Hammond organ and trumpets. "Hiskar rogač" is an electrified blues in the vein of John Mayall or Chicago Blues style, with leading harmonica chords and combined acoustic and electric guitars. It is the only track without Bojan Adamič's arrangements - here the band 7 SVETLOBNIH LET is backing Brecelj and we can witness the early incarnation of what would soon to become BULDOZER. Guitar solo by Uros Lovsin is particularly indicative of his future contributions on "Pljuni istini u oči". Minimalist acoustic blues "Pozar" (Fire) stresses the singer/songwriter potentials of Brecelj and closes with the sound of fire alarm.

The next three songs are bringing again a laid-back "lounge" style. It is particularly evident on minor hit "Dusa in jaz" (issued also as 7" single) and "Časopis" (The Magazine), while "Alojz valček" breaks in with folk and humoresque parts in ¾ time stamp, nice flute and funny fade-out with Brecelj spelling out the lines "stara plosča... stara plosča..." (old vinyl... old vinyl...) - thus mocking the odd time signature and emulating the sound of a pick-up skipping the grooves. The closing number "Gozd" announces strange psychedelic atmosphere with minimalist sounds of the chimes and acoustic guitar. There is a spooky feeling that reminds me of Syd Barrett's solo works.

It may seem that the album's main flaw is exactly in what its title suggests - a mix of different styles, ideas and arrangements. In the hands of a less gifted or confirmed author it may lead to quite inconsistent and under-developed piece of art. Not in the case of Marko Brecelj! His genius is big enough to make even from seemingly unfocused material an excellent album that opens up and offers to the listener more with every repeated listen.

It must be said that this is yet another shamelessly overlooked LP from the Yugoslavian 1970s discography. Luckily, it has been re-issued on CD by Nika label in 1996, including 7 bonus tracks: all three songs from the 1981 EP "Parada", b-side of "Dusa in jaz" single "Tri zenske", and 3 more previously unreleased tracks. This is good opportunity to (re)discover this fine album.